Bill Owens’ ‘Suburbia’ still mesmerizing 45 years...

1of7From “Suburbia”: “I bought the lawn in six-foot rolls. It’s easy to handle. I prepare the ground and my wife and son helped roll out the grass. In one day you have a front yard.”Photo: Bill Owens Archive 1972

3of7The mother of Richie Ferguson defended the 4-year-old’s playing with guns in a 1971 photo from Bill Owens’ book published in 1972, “Suburbia.”Photo: Bill Owens Archive 1971

4of7A 1970 image from “Suburbia”: “Sunday afternoon we get it together. I cook the steaks and my wife makes the salad.”Photo: Bill Owens Archive 1972

5of7A 30-years-later Rich Ferguson on his Harley near his home in Dublin.Photo: Bill Owens Archive 2002

6of7A 1971 image from “Suburbia”: “I enjoy giving a Tupperware party in my home. It gives me a chance to talk to my friends. But really, Tupperware is a homemaker's dream, you save time and money because your food keeps longer.”Photo: Bill Owens Archive 1972

7of7Bill Owens behind his cell phone in New York City.Photo: Ken Light

Richie Ferguson parked his Big Wheel at the curb as he always did when on patrol, with his cowboy boots on the wrong feet and his toy rifle ready for whatever trouble might hit Spruce Lane in Dublin.

He was 4 and though no trouble came that day, one stranger did come along to shoot him. It was Bill Owens with his Pentax. Ferguson gave the photographer the kind of squint-eyed glower that police officers like to give nosy people with cameras, and the resulting black-and-white became the most singular image in Owens’ groundbreaking document, “Suburbia,” published in 1972 and never out of print.

“That picture just pops up all the time,’’ Ferguson said by phone after a long day’s work as an industrial electrician. “It’s been in Time magazine. It’s been on T-shirts, calendars and on an album cover. I heard Trump had it on his Facebook page not too long ago.”

For 46 years, Ferguson has been trailed by the image wherever he has gone, which is not far. At age 51, he has lived in just two houses, both in Dublin, a few miles apart. His friend Owens hasn’t budged much either and in September he will turn 80, a milestone to be celebrated by simultaneous photo shows in the East Bay where he was born and lives.

“Bill Owens and an Exhibit of Suburbia,” featuring 26 gelatin silver prints, is now on display at the Reva and David Logan Gallery of Documentary Photography at North Gate Hall, the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism.

“Altamont to America: Bill Owens and the Legacy of Suburbia” is at PhotoCentral Gallery, in Owens’ hometown of Hayward.

That show includes 50 prints covering Owens’ entire career from the Peace Corps to the various iterations of “Suburbia.” There is a 10-minute loop of excerpts from an upcoming documentary on Owens being made by former Chronicle photographer Kim Komenich. Also included is a picture of Owens riding a pony as a child, a precursor to Ferguson on his Big Wheel.

Part of that image’s ironic appeal is the photo caption supplied by Ferguson’s mother, Jeanne. “I don’t feel that Richie playing with guns will have a negative effect on his personality. (He already wants to be a policeman)” it began.

But Ferguson doesn’t own a gun and never wanted to become a police officer. “That was my mom’s story,” he said. The buzz cut was his dad’s story. He barbered his son with shears. “That’s how you saved money back in the day,” he said.

Ferguson’s recollection of Oct. 23, 1971, is vague. But Owens has total recall of the moment he came out of the home of a friend where he was having Saturday morning coffee. He took one look at the kid on his trike and sprinted for his yellow Volkswagen Beetle to fetch the camera.

“All of the elements of our culture were there,” Owens said. “He’s got cowboy boots on and a scowl on his face. He’s acting grown up.”

Owens recalled that it took him maybe 10 seconds to snap five or six images, and create “the symbol of the ’70s.”

Some would argue for the image of a woman standing in white go-go boots hosting a Tupperware party for five moms on a sectional couch with a swag lamp hanging on a chain from the ceiling.

But Richie on his Big Wheel outlasted them all, with a rare vintage enlargement selling for $20,000. All Ferguson got out of it was a copy of the book, a small print to frame and the nickname Richie, which Owens used in his caption book. Ferguson never has been able to shake it though he prefers to be called Rich.

But he’s been a good sport about it. Ten years after publication of “Suburbia,” he posed on his two-wheeler for Owens and for the 30th anniversary he posed on his Harley.

He’ll be riding it up from Dublin to Berkeley for Owens’ public birthday party Sept. 14 at the journalism school.

Owens will be in conversation with Ken Light who runs the documentary photography program at the journalism school, but it is Ferguson who has the best stories about the astonishing durability of “Suburbia.”

One such story involves his wife, Deanna, who took a newspaper clipping of the photo to her office. A co-worker saw it and couldn’t believe it.

“She had the picture of me hanging in the bathroom at home for two years,” said Ferguson. “She was really worried about whatever happened to this poor kid.”

Sam Whiting has been a feature writer at The San Francisco Chronicle for 30 years. He started in the People section, which was anchored by Herb Caen's column, and has written about people ever since. For five years he had a weekly Sunday magazine column called Neighborhoods. He currently covers art, culture and entertainment for the Datebook section. He walks a minimum of three miles a day in San Francisco, searching out public art and street art for posting on Instagram @sfchronicle_art.